According to several authors, the enhancement project incorporates a quest for hyperagency - i.e. a state of affairs in which virtually every constitutive aspect of agency (beliefs, desires, moods, dispositions and so forth) is subject to our control and manipulation. This quest, it is claimed, undermines the conditions for a meaningful and worthwhile life. Thus, the enhancement project ought to be forestalled or rejected. How credible is this objection? In this article, I argue: “not very”. I do so by (...) evaluating four different versions of the “hyperagency” objection from four different authors. In each case I argue that the objection either fails outright or, at best, provides weak and defeasible grounds for avoiding enhancement. In addition to this, I argue that there are plausible grounds for thinking that enhancement helps, rather than hinders, us in living the good life. (shrink)

This paper tries to clarify, strengthen and respond to two prominent objections to the development and use of human enhancement technologies. Both objections express concerns about the link between enhancement and the drive for hyperagency. The first derives from the work of Sandel and Hauskeller—and is concerned with the negative impact of hyperagency on social solidarity. In responding to their objection, I argue that although social solidarity is valuable, there is a danger in overestimating its value and in (...) neglecting some obvious ways in which the enhancement project can be planned so as to avoid its degradation. The second objection, though common to several writers, has been most directly asserted by Saskia Nagel, and is concerned with the impact of hyperagency on the burden and distribution of responsibility. Though this is an intriguing objection, I argue that not enough has been done to explain why this is morally problematic. I try to correct for this flaw before offering a variety of strategies for dealing with the problems raised. (shrink)

Disorders of agency could be described as cases where people encounter difficulties in assessing their own degree of responsibility or involvement with respect to a relevant action or event. These disturbances in one’s sense of agency appear to be meaningfully connected with some mental disorders and with some symptoms in particular—i.e. auditory verbal hallucinations, thought insertion, pathological guilt. A deeper understanding of these experiences may thus contribute to better identification and possibly treatment of people affected by such disorders. In this (...) paper I explore disorders of agency to flesh out their phenomenology in more detail as well as to introduce some theoretical distinctions between them. Specifically, I argue that we may better understand disorders of agency by characterizing them as dimensional. In §1 I explore the cases of Auditory Verbal Hallucinations (AVH) and pathological guilt and I show that they lie at opposite ends of the agency spectrum (i.e. hypoagency versus hyperagency). In §2 I focus on two intermediate cases of hypo- and hyper- agency. These are situations that, despite being very similar to pathological ones, may be successfully distinguished from them in virtue of quantitative factors (e.g. duration, frequency, intensity). I first explore the phenomenon of mind wandering as an example of hypoagency, and I then discuss the phenomenon of false confessions as an example of hyperagency. While cases of hypoagency exemplify situations where people experience their own thoughts, bodies, or actions as something beyond their control, experiences of hyperagency provide an illusory sense of control over actions or events. (shrink)

This article summarizes Linda Martin Alcoff's Rape and Resistance. Alcoff's analysis centers on a political and philosophical defense of the need to recognize the complexity of both the phenomenon of sexual assault and the various political attempts to counter it. Such complexity extends to the process of describing an experience of sexual assault, which Alcoff argues is always shaped by a multitude of political and social discourses. Alcoff's Foucauldian analysis results in an innovative description of the harms of sexual assault, (...) one that focuses on the ways in which experiences of sexual assault prohibit the active involvement of the subject in the development of their sexual subjectivity. Recognizing that gender-based violence is a global phenomenon, Alcoff nevertheless argues that place-specific instances of such violence are contextualized by the larger phenomenon, which is heterogeneous to its core. The article concludes by posing several questions to Alcoff, centered on the themes of the ethics of sexual experimentation, assailants' ascription of hyperagency to targets of sexual assault, and how sexual assault may influence the sexual subjectivity of maleidentified victims, particularly those who were assaulted as children. (shrink)

In this book, Kate Ward addresses the issue of inequality from the perspective of Christian virtue ethics. Her unique contribution is to argue that moral luck, our individual life circumstances, affects one's ability to pursue virtue. She argues that economic status functions as moral luck and impedes the ability of both the wealthy and the impoverished to pursue virtues such as prudence, justice, and temperance. The book presents social science evidence that inequality reduces empathy for others' suffering, and increases violence, (...) fear, and the desire to punish others. For the wealthy, inequality creates "hyperagency" - abundant freedom, power, and choice beyond that enjoyed by other members of society. For the poor, scarcity of time, money, and other important goods can also impair their ability to pursue virtue. Having established the theological harm caused by inequality, Ward then makes the argument that both individual Christians and Christian communities have obligations to address the impact of inequality. As individuals, Christians should pursue what Ward calls encounter, conversion, and contentment. Encounter means genuinely reaching out to the less fortunate and spending enough time to get to know individuals as human beings. For Ward, conversion means informing oneself about the realities of poverty and inequality. Contentment means being satisfied with one's position and not striving for more material wealth. Christian communities, in Ward's view, have obligations to pursue political action, tithing, and aid, and to foster encounters in parishes and educational settings. (shrink)